


the door to my room is like a big old coffin

by nevergreen



Series: the best of times [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, No Incest, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevergreen/pseuds/nevergreen
Summary: i don't drink, i don't fight, i gotta make it through another night
Relationships: Dave Strider/Dirk Strider
Series: the best of times [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766806
Kudos: 17





	the door to my room is like a big old coffin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ascendedGodhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascendedGodhead/gifts).



**4.**  
When Dave falls asleep on his shoulder, it’s that exact moment when the thin line between implying something and its actual existence ceases to exist. There is a rumble in Dirk’s head, their timelines crushing into one, merging like two galaxies, killing billions of options and choices, giving life to countless new ones. Dirk is used to the frightening feeling it creates, but now it’s paired with the excitement, bleak at first. It grows strong, though, it gains momentum, and Dirk surveys himself from a socially appropriate distance, careful not to make any hasty conclusions. Everything is in the objective realm now, it wakes a deep, profound sense of being in charge, it means he has one more thing to deal with. 

He’s not hiding things with Dave, he just doesn’t talk about them explicitly - apparently, that’s enough so people don’t notice. Roxy is an exception, though, she’s always been. She asks him directly a couple of weeks later – it’s not like she didn’t decrypt it right away, she’s just a good friend and gives him enough time, which absolutely doesn’t stop her from beginning with the exact phrase Dirk knew she’d say. 

TG: so are you two like  
TG: a thing  
TT: Define “a thing”. We could be salsa partners or doing crime together, you never know.  
TG: ohh playful today arent we ;)  
TG: cant wait to see u two being a thing right in front of my salad  
TT: Why is there so much involvement already? I sense some twisted maternal instincts here.  
TG: because i like dave  
TG: speaking about instincts  
TG: if u mess this up ill adopt him so every time u text me i could say don’t talk to me or my son ever again  
TT: Didn’t think there’s a single person in the world who could un-cringe the meme.  
TT: Also I’m pretty sure there’s a law defined amount of levels people can be connected on and I certainly don’t want this perverted family action going on further.  
TG: youre trying to distract me with your LEVELS  
TG: are you two coming today??  
TT: No, I have plans.  
TG: aw shit  
TG: a date????  
TG: but you know dnd isnt dungeons and dragons anymore its dirk and dave community service  
TG: itll be dull without you two  
TT: I’m sure you’ll find a way to entertain yourself. Dave said one of his friends is quite good at describing stuff. You just need to find out which one.  
TT: I should go. Tell me how it goes.

He finds Dave at the exact spot he was half an hour ago: sitting on the sill, legs out and swinging, not holding on anything. Dirk approaches slowly, carefully, puts a swift hand around his shoulders before Dave could get scared. Nothing happens – Dave doesn’t flinch, just says in a tone that suggests he didn’t even notice Dirk’s absence:  
“If you jump from here, there will probably be a huge fucking splotch.”

“It’ll be a huge fucking inconvenience”, Dirk agrees and Dave leans back to him. Dirk looks at the briefly visible trail of clouds on the horizon. “I can sure as hell tell you we’re up for some rain tonight. Still want to give it a go?”

“Making especially gory narratives, being a reclusive fuck and a really good listener, predicting weather now, what else can you do?” Dave’s head bobs slightly when Dirk lets go of his shoulders. “At some point in your life you just unlock the abilities one after another. Besides, I like predicting things I like.”

They stand like that for a while – Dave, half outside the window, Dirk at his back, not holding on him anymore. Dave smells like a stray cat and looks like one, in his slightly scruffy hoodie, with his fair head puffy and ruffled from the occasional wind. He interlocks his and Dirk’s hand, and maybe it’s time for something that grows inside people being in a relationship for a certain time and then asks to be released, something wholesome, boyfriend-y and applicable. Dirk has not even a slightest idea what it could be. He says instead:

“Dave, you can count on me,” and it sounds exactly the kind of confession he isn’t designed to say out loud, it feels like he's a Texan prom queen and Dave is the quarterback he’ll suck off in a locker room later, but the damage has been done already, so Dirk just continues. “The word, and I will help you.”  
Dave’s grip only becomes stronger. 

**3.**  
The first thing Dirk sees when he sits down at the shabby table are eyes, those big puppy-like eyes, sad and green like a whole elven forest sprinkled with rain and magic dust. Dirk has no idea why Jake looks sad, ever since their breakup he imagined him relieved, freed and happy, and it was sitting at the back of his throat for so long, a reminder of what he said and done. Now that Dirk looks at him, Jake doesn’t look neither happy nor freed, but there’s certainly a pinch of relief, it marks his face quickly and oh so obviously, when he sees Dirk. Jake even stands up, and awkwardly drops back on the seat again when Dirk sits first. He looks tired and very thoroughly unkempt, like someone put a carefully crafted filter on his face, and it makes him more good-looking than ever. 

“Want something?” Dirk breaks the silence. “Have you eaten today?”  
“Aw shucks,” Jake breathes out instead of answering, his eyes are wavering. “It’s nice to see you.”

“A milkshake, then,” and Dirk stands up because he just can’t look at it anymore, he has no idea if Jake’s sorrow is real or not, but it stains him, thick and oily. “I’ll be right back.”  
When he returns, they sit in a silence for a whole five minutes more. Jake sips his milkshake, humbled, tamed and just a tiny bit embarrassed, Dirk drinks cherry cola and feels its sweetness, artificial and sickening, sticking to the tongue. The evening is warm, there are a lot of people around them, and the thought of Dave sleeping in his apartment on his hastily packed backpack is so distant, it fears Dirk more than he wants to admit. They both are equally far away now: Jake and Dave, both people that managed to make him feel something for them, both are out of his universe at this very moment. Jake slurps the remnants of his milkshake loudly - this makes Dirk snap out of his thoughts - and speaks first this time. 

“How have you been?” He controls his face and voice much better now. Dirk shrugs. “Following no particular pattern. You know me.”  
“Good, I’m in the same vein,” Jake fiddles with the straw, not looking at Dirk anymore. “It’s really nice to see you, buddy. All the hopes that you feel likewise. Roxy refused to tell me anything about you, so I absolutely needed to do it on my own hook. Speaking with you, I mean,” he sighs and Dirk feels absolutely awful, punch-drunk even, when he realizes the degree of his own detachment from the person sitting opposite him. He hadn't thought, not even once, that breaking up and living on his own before he met Dave was probably the easiest part of it all. 

“Truth be told,” Jake continues, “I thought you might hate me after all.”  
It’s so unlike Jake, thinking and saying stuff like this, that Dirk can’t help but suppress a short, bitter laugh. It must be Roxy who invoked this thought inside this good-looking, simple, oblivious head. Dirk knows, if he says “me too”, it will be an understatement of a century. He has no intention of swooping Jake away with the profound descriptions, though, so he just answers:

“I don’t, that’s stupid. You did nothing wrong.” _I lied, I lied, I lied_ , chants and sings his consciousness, _I lied and now I’m the first, I won and everything is mine_. Dirk smiles to his thoughts and Jake blooms, seeing his smile. “Let’s at least chat again, how’s that?”

“I’m seeing someone, you know?” Dirk finds himself squeezing life out of a cardboard cup. Jake’s face stills, before he answers, carefully and quietly, “I hope meeting me is not a problem then”, and it’s so ridiculously Jake English to say such a thing that Dirk outright laughs. Jake _wants_ to be a problem, Dirk realizes and finds himself amused the third time in a row. 

“You have all my contacts,” he taps the phone lying beside him with his free hand, gently, and checks the time. It’s been only fifteen minutes, and Dirk feels like the time has stopped, viscous and thick. “You can write me whenever you want”, _but I won’t_ , thinks he and swallows it away. 

He’s allowed to have secrets. 

When he goes home, the sun has almost set, and the air outside is warm and sweet-scented. It’s so hot inside the apartment that all his clothes feel heavy and thick in an instant. Dirk gets out of them, throws a pile in an empty laundry basket and turns on the water in a shower. He stands there, forehead pressed into the steamed glass, until all the thoughts are drowned away in a hot stream whipping his back. It takes him half an hour, maybe more – he’s not used to this feeling at all – to remember he’s not alone here. Dirk tumbles off a shower, leaving wet spots on the floor, and the phone on the mirror shelf greets him with a buzz. 

TG: hey dude routers not working  
TT: Did you try to turn it off and on again?  
TG: very funny  
TG: and by that i mean thats kind of meta so i can give you like 5 laughpoints but its so overused you get -1000 instantly  
TG: the answer is fuck yes i turned it off an on and slapped the damn thing and gave it a kiss and started to negotiate and its still giving me the red light rude  
TG: come here and fix it its your stuff after all  
TG: also i thoroughly appreciate your hospitality but how long are u planning to be there because i might or might not have the strong urge to pee out of your window  
TT: My neighbors won’t appreciate the gesture. Give me a minute.  
TT: Also prepare to be fucking stumbled by a stream of hospitality right now in 3… 2… 1.  
TT: It’s our stuff, not mine.

Dave meets him outside the bathroom and hides his face in Dirk’s t-shirt. Dirk runs wet fingers through his hair and Dave sighs. “Are you okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m just so turned on by all that domestic stuff, I need you to walk me by the hand to the third base right now,” Dave sounds muffled and heavy, and the feeling of overwhelming distance, nibbling at Dirk all day, weakens every second Dave is beside him, he’s on Dirk’s orbit again, his own domesticated wandering star. “Where have you been, anyway?”  
“Just walking”, Dirk says, and it doesn’t feel like lying at all. “We need something to eat. Care to go outside for a while?”  


“Fuck yeah,” Dave mumbles and lets him go. “I want oatmeal and apple juice, then get handsy on each other like we’re in ninth grade or something with a shitfuck of a film on the background. KK should know some. Shit, it sounds exactly like his evenings with John,” he looks troubled now. “I became the very thing I swore to destroy, lived long enough to become the villain, etc. Talk to you later, don’t go anywhere,” and he slides between Dirk and the doorframe.  
Dirk’s eyes follow him; his own t-shirt hangs loosely on Dave’s scrawny shoulders.

**2.**  
“Can I stay at yours today?” is practically a ritual phrase at this point, the one that unlocks a good evening and a company, his own protection spell. Dave likes Happenstance and everything it is about, he likes Vriska too, but these feelings work best with a short-term interaction, it’s all too intense, too rogue, and every extra second is a reminder. Dirk is different. Out of all the places he could stay in, Dave likes Dirk’s flat the best, and the fact that Dirk lives here has zero correlation to it. Dave feels comfortable inside high bare walls - this apartment just doesn’t have a particular feeling of being a place to live, so Dave doesn’t feel like he invades someone’s privacy, they just co-exist there sometimes, and co-existing next to Dirk is surprisingly pleasant. He’s not that much of a talker, but he has something to say every time Dave opens his mouth, it doesn’t even feel like playing along, and it’s one of the things Dave likes the most about him. 

He occupies Dirk’s bed, it’s simply his most favorite place in the whole flat, he despises the couch he slept when he was here the first time with all the fierce he can produce, _it’s the fucking anti-visitor thing I got you you make people sleep on it so they never go here again_. “I can neither confirm nor deny it,” said Dirk unapologetically.  
Dave scrolls past the next few lines and snorts quietly, the exact amount of noise to make Dirk snap out of his thoughts. It works, and Dave asks himself: does Dirk know it or allow it?

“How does it feel?” asks Dirk, his legs are on the table littered with his laptop spare parts, his eyes are closed. The blinds are half-opened, and thick reddish light pours over him, pools between his ribs under his flipped up tank top and drips over his sides on a ragged black leather chair. Dave hums. “Very metaphoric.”

“Perfectly balanced answer, gives exactly nothing. Are you afraid of hurting my feelings?” He still doesn’t open his eyes, and Dave watches him closely, it’s unlike Dirk to be so relaxed in someone’s presence, he knows it by now and can’t help but take a little credit. “If you need my opinion that much, I’m afraid of your ability to rhyme _hurting_ with _something_ and be completely shameless about it. You’re a threat to society.”

“Let’s ask society,” Dirk is calm, halcyon even. “You’re the first to see it, actually.”  
“What about him?” Dave asks, digging his nails in the palm. He knows exactly nothing and he doesn’t need to know, but he’d ask anyway, so why stutter? Dirk’s face wavers slightly, and Dave sees it - just for a brief second, but he knows it way too well, the look of displeasure he’d decipher on every face, whoever they are. His fight or flight instinct kicks him in the gut, Dave kicks it back. Not the time, not the place, not the person. 

“He wasn’t really interested,” says Dirk at last. “To be honest, I think he wasn’t really interested in me as a whole concept.”  
“Why were you two together, then?” Dave finds himself slightly out of breath when he says it. Dirk takes his legs off the table and turns in the chair so they can face each other. He puts his head on the hands and looks Dave in the eyes, he’s serious and framed with the red light, like he’s forbidden to touch. “I wanted it. I think I pressured him into it.” 

Dave reaches the hand, tugs on Dirk’s wrist and drags him closer. ”Come here,” he says quietly, as if he isn’t sure Dirk is able to understand the gesture, and Dirk moves slowly, as if he isn’t sure he understood it well. Dave doesn’t let go, until the whole Dirk’s face changes – it’s no more _are you really wanna deal with me_ face which Dave hates with a burning passion, it’s the whole _wow you really went there_ one, and Dave cups it and kisses slowly. Dirk doesn’t let him do it for long, he breaks away and pushes him further, until Dave lies on his back. Dirk bites him then, just above the collarbone, the very place Karkat took a tequila shot from two years ago, drunk and laughing, so loud and happy, and licked him clean and kissed above. Dave isn’t sure this memory actually belongs to him anymore, it’s so distant, like he’s watching through someone’s eyes instead. 

The real world is bleeding through, Dirk sucks on his skin until it becomes borderline painful, and Dave winces and hisses, but doesn’t go away. There’s some elaborate reason why Dirk likes leaving marks and kissing the shit out of them afterwards, but Dave has his own, and it’s simple and clear: he’s a rebel. Dirk slides his hand under Dave’s t-shirt, his fingers are warm and precise, he’s horrifyingly accurate at tracing all the old bruises and scars. When Dirk presses his lips on Dave’s throat, the very place it hurts the most, his whisper sends shivers down Dave’s spine.  


“When were you planning to tell me that your brother beats you up?”

**1.**  
Dave avoids all the heavy doors, all creaky floorboards, he’s used to the pattern of this particular labyrinth, he knows how to run from one corner to another and steal the cheese without getting caught. Nothing is guarded, and the next time it’ll be, he won’t go there, he promises to himself. It’s not an empty one this time, there’s an intention, a real one – and for now Dave can slide right into his bed and pretend he was there many hours before, maybe even catch some sleep. He knows he won’t be able to, but can’t help to dream about it every time. 

The thin blanket welcomes him in its embrace, soft and familiar, and Dave thinks: i’ll take it with me, and the backpack, and some uni stuff, before remembering: he still needs to speak to Dirk about it. It could easily be the hardest thing to do; Dave considered to text him, but it doesn’t seem a thing they could discuss like that, and all the times they met Dave couldn’t pick the right moment. He isn’t sure they had any. Fidgeting with a phone for a while, Dave opens and closes chat with Dirk, knowing all too well, the second he texts him Dirk will sense him being worried. It’s not an option, not now at least, but the need to talk to someone is overwhelming – so Dave picks the lesser evil to satiate his urge. She won’t question him, _out of being the fucking best_ , Dave mutters to himself and taps the screen with a tip of his nose – his other arm is busy with making a blanket cocoon over his body.

TG: sup  
TG: not much! im makin dinner  
TG: how r u  
TG: do u wanna talk about smth  
TG: jeez give me a bit more of a fucking credit lalonde  
TG: can i just text my friend whenever i want to  
TG: you can and i hope youll do it more often  
TG: its just dirk is our strongest connection so maybe itll be hard to talk about other things  
TG: well im always up to knowing some of his dirtiest secrets from his best friend  
TG: ohhhh he has plenty  
TG: and some advices which i promise to completely ignore  
TG: i have so many to give you where to start  
TG: anticipating  
TG: im gonna give u the advice of a history dave honey   
TG: u know what di stri loves the most  
TG: secrets  
TG: its like a fundamental  
TG: welcome to dirk 101 today were being reserved as fuck  
TG: exactly  
TG: also because its for the best  
TG: fuck dont tell me i had it enough  
TG: so when u see him all plotting and thinking u know  
TG: it means hes up to dip himself in a hot pit of making DECISIONS  
TG: u kno  
TG: ill say it once and u forget i said it mkay  
TG: im all ears  
TG: him and jake  
TG: they broke up because they were soooo different u just don’t understand the difference like dude it was THE DIFFERENCE  
TG: jake is a nice guy overall uknow everyone from our old company used to like him  
TG: but for some reason dirk secured the home run  
TG: UGH he was strategic and disgusting please don’t ask me its the story for another time and place  
TG: so the thing is jake knew shit about dealing with di stri he was just around being a cuteass motherfluffer  
TG: 2 4 6 8 who do we appreciate dirk strider!  
TG: but u know how it is with dirk he cant physically digest hopes and dreams  
TG: so i look him in the eyes and say take the stick outta ur ass and smash your worries w it  
TG: righto  
TG: hes just the opposite of taking things for granted dude cant fucking take anything  
TG: honey don’t take it personally  
TG: but arent you the same?  
TG: excuse me im a fucking sole survivor bear grylls of psychological bullshit i eat problems on breakfast and this shit is nutritious  
TG: just know im here for you okay dave if you need any help just say it  
TG: were talking it helps  
TG: jeez roxy youd make the best mom in existence  
TG: :3  
TG: oh fuck my dinner  
TG: OH FUCK  
TG: brb

He slides off to a dream before she returns with a small smile on the lips and wakes up with a sensation of a heavy elbow pressing his neck into the pillow.


End file.
